Tag Archives: Summer

I know it’s summer and we are desperately holding on to those last precious days, but so many teachers are using this time to prep for the coming year.

As we look forward, what are some resources that you have sought on blogs or the paid sites that you wish you could find but have come up empty-handed? Many of us want to design resources for teachers, but don’t know what they really need in the classroom.

So, let’s start talking shop. Or shopping. What do you need that you can’t find? Pass this post around and help get those things out there for teachers!

(And yes, we wish all resources could be free, but we wouldn’t want to teach all day for free, so let’s understand that someone spending what little time and energy they have left at the end of the day will need some compensation for that.)

Ok, now that we are all done laughing sardonically, let’s talk about what this teacher is doing this summer. True, I am sitting here sipping a lovely summery glass of cucumber mint infused ice water as I type and enjoying it. However, I am doing this as a break from working on a revamp of my writing classes.

I had the amazing opportunity to attend a summer institute at a chapter of the National Writing Project where I had the chance to collaborate with other teacher writers about things that work and things that challenge us in both facets of ourselves. We worked on our own writing and shared our work, as well as sharing strategies for creating strong writing classes to grow writers, not just students in a writing class. It is this portion of the workshop that I am now heavily focused on. It would be so simple to say, “Well, that was a fun couple of weeks. Back to the same ol’ same ol’.” Sure, that would be much less work, but I can’t see myself going back to the way I was teaching language arts before.

Like so many language arts teachers, I taught grammar and worked writing in when I could. With standards to master and The Test looming at the end of the year, it was all we could do to get everything in. Writing was worked in as we could get it in and then the usual grammar lessons halted entirely for the first two months of the second semester to prepare the students for the writing assessment. Again, a decent plan. But was it the BEST plan?

No. Writing became focused in a narrow scope and students wrote for the test and not for the purpose of becoming better writers for the long haul. That needs to change. So, this summer, I am working hard to create meaningful language arts plans that focus on building writers and infusing authentic grammar lessons through writer’s workshop and mentor texts. It will not be easy to do. Worksheets and cute Pinterest plans are tempting and easier, but not what my new mission calls for. Don’t get me wrong, I love Pinterest and worksheets can be good for homework practice. Something tells me that this will not be an easy road to take, with many bumps and pot holes along the way, but it is the road I have chosen. There will certainly not be anything that will be a detriment to my students in changing the way I approach the teaching of language arts, and I hope that there will be a significant gain in the abilities of my students to think and read like writers using mentor texts to inspire them to break down what they read into elements of grammar and analysis of style. Rather than fitting in the writing around the grammar, it will all work together.

I can’t tell you how many times I get a text like that from my husband this summer. Every time the answer is different, but you would think, with it being summer break and all, that the answer would be one thing: sitting by the pool. Wouldn’t that be nice?

As it is, that has only been the answer once or twice. Instead, my replies have been “sitting in the lobby at the doctor,” “organizing the pantry,” “climbing Mount Laundry,” “proofing my novel,” and the ever popular answer for a newly licensed yet not working teacher: “applying for jobs.”

What I really would like to be doing is sitting by the pool working on a new novel. Perhaps before the summer ends. Of course, it would mean I have another novel to add to the list to send to publishers. Thinking of all of this begs the question for all of you:

Whatcha doin’ this summer?

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